Amsterdam home to a fourth of restaurants warned for filthy conditions

Dutch food safety authority NVWA placed a total of 129 restaurants in the Netherlands under increased supervision between November 2015 and December 2016. This happens when a restaurant gets at least three fines, one of which for poor hygiene standards or rotten food, in a period of two years. Over 30 of the affected restaurants are located in Amsterdam, RTL Nieuws reports based on data received from NVWA after appealing to the freedom of information act.

The list contains mostly small restaurants, but there are a few well known names. For example, Jaime Oliver's Fifteen in Amsterdam is on the list. That restaurant closed early last year, according to Het Parool. Bar Spek on Admiraal de Ruijterweg also made the list.

Another remarkable trend is the high number of restaurants serving oriental cuisine on the list. A massive 69 of the 129 restaurants listed serve Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese or Thai food.

NVWA inspectors found too high levels of harmful bacteria like salmonella or E.coli at 62 of the 129 restaurants. "Half were more than 50 times higher than the norm", microbiologist Rijkelt Beumer said to RTL after studying the NVWA's results. "These involve products that are simply rotten. They shouldn't be eaten."